


Housewarming (Rewrite)

by Samarkand12



Series: The Heterodyne's Girl [2]
Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Female Character, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 12:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20407759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samarkand12/pseuds/Samarkand12
Summary: This is a rewrite of an earlier version in the series that I felt made a narrative stumble at the end.





	Housewarming (Rewrite)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewrite of an earlier version in the series that I felt made a narrative stumble at the end.

Seffie suppressed the horror from manifesting on her features as she inspected the apartment. Smoke Knights were not realtors. Varpa had achieved a miracle in finding and furnishing an apartment in the three hours that Seffie had spent delaying Agatha in a leisurely café lunch and tour of the Latin Quarter. Her new home was in was on a cobblestoned _ruelle_ deep in the _cinquieme_ arrondissement. Two pedestrians passing each other on what passed for a street below might just manage if they sucked in a breath before making contact. A winding spiral staircase lead up to this flat on the third floor just below the garret. Apparently, the previous occupant had been found at the bottom of the shaft just this morning after having sensibly committed suicide rather than face another hour's occupancy.

It was at least clean aside from some clutter to suggest the occupancy of a bohemian student such as "Sophie Lavois". Varpa and her cohorts had sanitized the flat and redecorated it in character with the same meticulousness they applied to removing any evidence of an execution. That did not make the main room much larger than than a servant's chamber in the Blitzengaard _hotel particulier_. There was enough room for a couch, two armchairs, a roll-top desk, and a small dinner table. Somehow, Varpa had wedged a battered electromechanical spinet into one corner. The kitchen consisted of one corner dedicated to a small countertop with a sink and two-coil electric stovetop. The bedroom off to one side was a trifle larger than an airship cabin. A white-enameled bedframe was jammed against the outside-facing wall beneath the window. Drawing back a curtain revealed an compartment set into the wall just deep and wide enough to hold a mattress. A door in the short expanse of wall linking the two rooms revealed a bathroom with only barely enough space to contain sink, water-closet, and bathtub.

Why had she talked herself into this ridiculous situation?

Halting boot-steps echoed up through the stairwell. Her uncle's clockwinder leaned against the door-jamb, gasping, with her leather valise clutched in both hands. Really? The girl had the physique of a peasant under those dowdy rags of hers. Seffie thanked all the saints that Grandmère's training included the ability to dance in tight shoes while still be able to escape from a midnight assassination if need be. She would need it for a third-floor walkup without a lift. Miss Clay brushed her hair _with that adorable cowlick_ out from her eyes. She regarded the apartment with wary eyes behind those comically-oversized glasses. Seffie had draped herself over the couch by then, seemingly at home in this _postage stamp_ _of a flat_. She observed the girl exploring the apartment over the top of a _Paris Soir._ An odd, atonal hum came from Agatha's lips as she clicked light-switches and ran taps. Surely she must have encountered such things at university? Agatha stopped by the window.

Her lips parted with a hand to her throat.

If one positioned one just so, one might catch the magnificence of the Awful Tower rising into the sky.

Seffie closed her eyes at the heartbreaking sight of a young woman realizing that she was in Paris for the first time.

Grandmère was going to be cackling over this for months when Varpa made her report.

+++++

_Purple ichor everywhere._

_ The arms that had once cradled her as a child were scattered about the parlor._

_ Lilith's face on the head now resting two meters away from the ravaged bits of the rest of her. _

_ She--she had been about to say something._

_ About getting to somehwere._

_ Red fire, they were dead they were dead no-one could sew them all together and the wasps were coming and dragging her and soon she would join the rest shambling through the streets--_

Water sloshed when Agatha bolted upright. Wide green eyes stared about at walls tiled in pink and fixtures painted white. Fingers gripped the rim of a clawfoot bathtub so hard they nearly dented metal before slowly relaxing. Twin spikes of pain drove into her brain from each of her temples as the fear aggravated her condition. Agatha slumped back into the lukewarm water filling the tub. She had not fallen asleep in the kitchen at home in the big wooden tub that doubled for doing laundry. She was in the bathroom of the cozy apartment in Paris that was _so far away from the nightmare that had become Beetleburg_. Yes. She had decided to take a long soak to relax after the intensity of those first hours arriving in Paris. Everything had been so overwhelming: so many people, so much traffic, so much to take in. She had thought Bucarest a metropolis in the brief moments of lucidity in the haze of grief that had claimed her after the disaster in her home town. Bucarest was a hamlet compared to the vast sprawl of Paris that now stretched out around her.

Agatha hauled herself out of the tub. She had already taken advantage of a shower this morning when the Corbettite train had been approaching Paris. The bath had merely been to celebrate the fact that she could wash herself any time she wanted without waiting for the heat-exchanger attached Adam's _he's dead he's dead never see him again_ forge to heat enough water to be pumped to the kitchen sink for a bath. She spun the hot-water tap of the sink with somewhat childish glee. Hot-and-cold running water was hardly a novelty to her. It was everywhere in the university. One couldn't run the labs without it. But to have it merely a few steps away from your bed without having to wait until it was heated was an amazing luxury. So were the incandescent lights available at the flick of a switch rather than having to light a kerosene lamp. Or the water-closet just over there instead of carefully taking down a chamber pot to be rinsed out into the septic tank in the kitchen.

It was nothing at all like her poky bedroom in the attic of Lilith and Adam's house.

No. She was not going to break down weeping. She was not going to shame herself in front of her new room-mate. There would be plenty of time for Sophie to find out what a _weak, useless girl who hadn't deserved to be saved when there were so many other worthy people killed and shambling their eyes blank_ that she had taken in. Herr Gilgamesh had given her this chance out of a generosity that she knew she did not really deserve. He deserved better than her _breaking down in hysterical sobs when the nightmares came_. Brace up. Towel dry your hair. Work it into some presentibility with a comb from the little cabinet behind the mirror over the sink. Wipe the condensation off your glasses before putting them on. Agatha instinctively checked the trilobite locket on its chain on her throat. She had nearly lost it that day. A fingertip traced the dent in the side of the casing where a wasp's claw had torn it from her throat. She had been so lucky that that nice Herr von Zinzer had brought it to her in the sanctuary camp. She hoped that he found a good place here in Paris.

There. She was ready to deal with--

\--a wolf-whistle sounded out as Agatha stepped out of the bathroom--

\--perhaps she should WRAP A TOWEL ABOUT HERSELF FIRST.

Agatha's cheeks were nearly as red as Sophie's hair when she emerged again. Her flatmate was sprawled on the couch sipping a glass of what, according to an uncorked bottle nearby, had to cognac. Though dressed in the hodgepodge of military clothing that was fashionable among students, Sophie Lavois appeared as immaculately turned-out as a princess lounging in her private apartments. It had taken Agatha somewhat aback to find her room-mate wearing cavalryman's breeches rather than skirts. Lilith had taught her that young ladies did not wear breeches past a certain age. But then, she could not imagine Lilith daring to correct Sophie. Agatha could tell from the Romanian accent under her flatmate's excellent French that she had to be connected somehow to the Magyar-Saxon nobility who had ruled the Carpathians since time immemorial. Gilgamesh had had the exact same accent. Her entire bearing exuded the confidence of one to the manor born. She was certainly pale enough to claim kinship to the Wallachian Tepes clan.

Er.

No, that was definitely alcohol in the glass. Agatha knew the difference between that and the thinned-blood consumed by hemovores.

"Don't bother covering up on my account." Sophie saluted her with her glass. "A body such as that should be flaunted."

"I was giving the monks on the train an eyeful enough as it was." Agatha collapsed into one of the armchairs flanking the--yes, the drapes were pulled closed--window of the living room. "I never sleepwalked before. It must be the...stress."

"I hope you don't start work tomorrow." Sophie poured a second glass, handing it to her. "Because I intend to show Paris to you. I do so love introducing novices to this city."

"Ah, my mother counseled against drinking--" Agatha tried to push away the glass.

"You are in the City of Lightning." Sophie's voice held the note of command even without the harmonics of the Spark. "It will not do for you to hold to whatever petty-bourgeois notions of 'proper deportment' you once clung to."

"Are you one of those bad girls I was warned about?" Agatha did sip a bit of the cognac out for politeness' sake.

"The term you should use is 'wicked'." Sophie winked. "That is immorality conducted with style and flair. We'll have you dancing on tables in Montmartre and kissing all the boys in no time."

"As if that will happen any time soon," Agatha said. "I am not the girl any boy looks at except to laugh at."

"Oh? Did not our gallant Herr Hoffzaller--pardon, Herr Wulfenbach carry you off in his arms?" Sophie's knowing smile has enough teeth shown to rival a Jaeger's smile. A fingertip traced Agatha's lips. "Surely you lost your composure and rewarded him for his heroism."

"Well, I might have a bit." Warmth spread through Agatha at that moment atop Mr. Tock. "But he's the heir to the Empire. Really, he is more of a patron than an--er--"

"Lover?" Sophie smiled. "You know, you are quite adorable when you blush. A lady such as myself might be tempted."

"Tempted?" The rim of the glass halted millimeters away from her lips.

"At times, I carry a letter of marque."

Agatha frowned.

"Kneel before the prioress? Steer to port? Prefer fish to sausage?" Sophie blinked. "I know they are more conservative in the Carpathians. But Beetleburg was hardly so off the beaten track that women being attracted to women was unknown."

"Oh! 'Left hand threaded'!" Agatha exclaimed. "I overheard someone saying that behind the back of one of my music masters. Lilith explained that some men liked other men just as she and Adam-- Oh."

"I am ambidextrous," Sophie said. "Sometimes men. Sometimes women. Sometimes various combinations as chemistry and circumstances allow. However, I never put either of my hands where they are not wanted."

"So you, ah, like--" Agatha waved at herself. "Like this? No one ever took any interest in me."  


"They might have," Sophie said. "You seem fairly cloistered. You may not have noticed."

"I was the town freak," Agatha said bitterly. "The dolt who never did anything right."

"You can play," Sophie said softly. "When you play and lose yourself in the music, your are radiant."

A flush that was not of shame spread through Agatha.

"Also, 'that' as you put it would have many an artist in Montmartre on their knees begging you to model for them." Sophie took the greatcoat laid over one end of the couch. "However, you seem a touch exposed at the moment. Have a cover-up."

"Thank you!" Agatha gratefully closed up the coat over her near-nakedness. She glanced at the piano wedged beside the rolltop desk. "Hey, that is a Hammonde Electro-Spinet! I have always wanted to play one!"

"I dabble myself," Sophie said. "However, I prefer to watch those with true passion for the art instead."

Delighted, Agatha pulled the knife switch on the side of the delightful electromechanical piano and began to play.

For once, she had an appreciative audience.

++++

Saints above, she was gorgeous.

Seffie hovered behind Agatha as her fingers danced over the keys. Eyes closed, she had thrown her head back in sheer rapture.

Oh, her locket had fallen open. Surely, she would not mind Seffie closing it. And if those hands came to rest gently on her shoulders--

Blue eyes widened in shock as they focused on the tiny portraits within the trilobite locket.

_Oh, no._


End file.
